


No Stranger to Shadows

by morganoconner



Series: Heartaches and Hellfire [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Demons, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Slash, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:20:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganoconner/pseuds/morganoconner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after all these years with S.H.I.E.L.D., they still have some secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Stranger to Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> A fair bit of demon lore taken from the television show _Supernatural_ , but familiarity with the show isn't necessary to understand the story.
> 
> Written for my hc-bingo card, for the prompt "making deals with demons". Yeah, I don't know either. This was definitely not what I planned on spending the last few days writing. *hides face*
> 
> Please note the warnings: This story includes mentions of child abuse, torture, and rape. There are no graphic depictions of any.

It's not like Clint's been unaware of the shit going down all over the place, upstairs and downstairs and fucking leviathans and the whole world going to shit every time he turns around. It's hard to miss, even with the _other_ crap he has to deal with on a regular basis; aliens and supervillains and magic even he's never heard of before.

But he's good at passing under the radar, and he's better at turning a blind eye when he needs to. Humans'll figure it out or the world'll go to Hell, but either way, he's just one insignificant bug and he ain't gonna make a difference to any side. He does the job he's told to do and stays as ignorant as it's possible for something like him to be, and if Natasha sniffs out more information than he wants to know, she's at least good enough to keep it to herself.

S.H.I.E.L.D., somehow, stays in blissful denial of what's right under their noses and they never put two and two together to make four because that would make too much fucking sense for an organization that's gotten used to saving the world from space bugs and evil robots and mad scientists.

Until the demon comes.

And the thing is, right, it's nothing but a low-level crossroads skank in a low-cut dress and heels, lips painted dark and eyes the color of Nat's hair. It's barely even a threat, but it steals four fucking souls before Clint and Natasha realize the facility has been compromised, and then he has to do some fast talking to get Coulson to understand why it's a Big Fucking Deal.

It's a sign of how long they've worked together that Coulson takes him at his word and doesn’t ask questions they don't have time for.

They get it locked down, the three of them and Fury, and they send it packing. Clint and Natasha block their ears when Phil reads the exorcism in goddamn _perfect_ Latin that Clint should not under any circumstances find sexy as hell.

The rest of the Avengers don't even know something happened, locked away in their tower the day it all goes down, and Christ, Clint wishes it could stay that way. But Fury'll tell 'em soon one way or another, thinking they can do something about the threat he's aware of now, and Clint doesn't have the heart (or the balls) to tell him he's nothing but a cockroach to these fuckers he wants to go up against.

Hell, maybe Clint's been wrong all along anyway. The past year, he's seen them take down some heavy hitters. Maybe Heaven and Hell and everything in between _should_ be scared of them. Maybe he's just too jaded to believe it because he's been downstairs, and shit like that sticks with you. The thought of facing down an army of black-eyed bastards makes him shake, same way he knows Cap goes tense when it's too cold and Tony doesn't like being near water more than three inches deep.

In the end, though, he doesn't get much of a chance to worry about any of that, because Coulson calls him into his office, and then he's got something brand new to shit his pants over.

"How did you know?" Coulson asks without preamble, hands clasped over his desk, eyes locked on Clint the way they always are during a debrief, but a hell of a lot more intense than Clint's ever seen them before.

Clint tries a smirk, leaning back in his chair and spreading his hands. "I'm just that good, Coulson, been telling you all along."

Coulson shakes his head. "You're good, Barton, but you're not that good. I need to know. If nothing else, when this all goes down eventually, I need to know how to avoid hurting you or Agent Romanov."

Asshole has always been too fucking smart for his own good. Clint sighs. "You really don't wanna know this."

"Why don't you try trusting me to make that decision for myself?"

Well. It's as reasonable a request as any, coming from a handler who's worked with Clint Barton for as long as this one has. "It's a long story, sir," he says, like it'll make the slightest fucking difference.

And yeah, there it is, Coulson's lips twitching up like he almost wants to smile. "We've got time."

So, against every instinct he's got and all common sense, Clint braces himself and starts to talk. He starts right at the beginning because there's no other good lead-in for a conversation like this.

He tells Coulson about growing up on the war-torn reservations. He tells him about the way his people, his _family_ , suffered while watching their homes get ravaged, their children beaten and their wives raped. He tells him about his desperation, the deal he made, the soul he traded so he could be good enough, just good enough, to put a few arrows in a few enemies and give his people a fighting chance at survival.

He manages to talk for almost an hour straight before Coulson finally interrupts. "You weren't an expert marksman already?" he asks. He's leaning back in his own chair now, head tilted as he takes it all in.

"Hell no," Clint snorts. "Worst aim in the whole damn tribe. Practically a disgrace. I had bad eyesight and an unsteady grip, you'd have laughed your ass off watching me back then."

"I doubt it," Coulson says softly, and Clint flushes, has to look away. "Keep going?"

It's a request instead of a demand, which is the only reason Clint manages to swallow back the bile and talk about after his deal came due. About Hell. The pain and the hopelessness and all the ways they broke him, over and over and over and over again. The shadows and the sulfur and the screaming.

"Nat and I went down at the same time," he says, staring at the wall over Coulson's left shoulder. "Went on the same rack. Sometimes I think that's the only reason either of us came out of it mostly sane."

"How did you escape?" Coulson asks. His voice is still so gentle it carves Clint down to the marrow.

"We were both trained to be spies. Infiltrators." He gives a self-deprecating laugh. "Almost every skill we've used in the field, we learned there." He closes his eyes against the memories, the training that had almost been worse than the breaking. Centuries and centuries of nothing but blood-slick agony. "In…it had to be the early seventies up here, they started gearing up for something big, getting us ready to be sent topside. Before they were ready, there was a rift. Shook some things loose. Me and Nat, we saw an opportunity and got while the going was good, on our own terms instead of theirs. Slipped out of the crack and ran. Guess things got too busy after that for them to care much about a few loose demons."

Coulson nods slowly, looking thoughtful. The word doesn't seem to shake him at all. He looks Clint over, top to bottom, and Clint tries not to squirm. "Presumably, demons are a sort of spirit, yes?" he asks.

"Little darker than the average ghost, but yeah, basically," Clint allows. Then he catches on. "You're wondering about the body."

"I admit, I'm pretty curious. You and Natasha have been working for us for nearly a decade; I've certainly noticed changes in that time. You age?"

"Demons use host bodies," Clint says, shifting uncomfortably under Coulson's scrutiny. "They age naturally, die when we leave 'em if we've let something fatal happen while they were possessed. We can animate corpses too, I guess, if we don't mind them rotting around us, but I don't recommend it."

Even Coulson grimaces at that one. "That's a pleasant image."

"Sorry," Clint says with a sort-of apologetic shrug. "When we first got topside, we hopped around a lot, never stayed in one place or one body for very long. Then in eighty-one, a hunter managed to trap us. Damn near pulled off an exorcism too. After we got away, we decided we'd be better off splitting up for a while, finding bodies that wouldn't be missed, or noticed as easily." He swallows. "Kids were the best bet. Runaways if we could swing it. I found the coma victim, kid beat so bad by his foster father he was already long gone by the time I found him. No family left except his brother, who I couldn't shake. I snuck out of the hospital and he followed me. I told him I was gonna join up with a circus, and he followed me there too." He snorted a laugh, shaking his head. Poor Barney, so lost in his own head he'd never had a clue that his brother wasn't his brother anymore. But it worked out okay. Mostly.

"Nat, she found a girl in Russia, where she came from. Catatonic. Rape victim, a young one. No one around to care for her. Too broken to want to care for herself. After that, we lost contact entirely for a long time. She stayed in Russia for a while, off the radar until…well. You know till when, I guess. Hell did a number on her. To me too, but she didn't deal as well. Did a lot she's not proud of before she pulled herself back."

"Before you pulled her back," Coulson remarks, probably because he has a memory like a steel fucking trap, and he was there the night Clint was sent to kill her.

Clint shrugs. "Couldn't have done a damn thing if she hadn't wanted me to. Anyway, you know everything after that." Clint rubs a hand over his face, suddenly feeling more wrung out than he has in years.

"Yes, I can probably put the pieces together from there," Coulson says, still with that too-thoughtful look on his face. "But it still doesn't tell me… why all this? Why let yourself get recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D., why be an Avenger?"

Clint stares at him. "I'd've thought that one was obvious." He grimaces. "I hate what I am, Coulson. All I ever wanted was to help, to…be a hero, I guess." Christ, that sounds stupid, even now. "It's what started the whole fucked up mess to begin with, you know? And instead, I'm…well, what I am. And Nat's the same sob story as me, except she's also trying like hell to make up for the shit she did before she remembered she used to be human."

"The red in her ledger." Coulson is quiet when he quotes her often-spoken phrase. "I think I understand."

Which is sure as fuck more than Clint ever hoped for. "You do?"

"Actually, it explains a lot," Coulson tells him, smiling a little. "And let's face it, Barton. This is not the strangest thing I've ever heard."

"Pretty high up there," Clint mutters. He shifts a little lower in his seat, crossing his arms. "So what happens now?"

"Well," Coulson says slowly. "I'm taking all of this at face value so—"

Clint growls. He can't help it. He's agonized for years about whether or not he should come clean with his handler, the one person on this whole damn planet he trusts as much as he does Natasha. Like hell is he gonna let Coulson sit on it and decide whether he believes it or not. "Face value, huh?" he says, and lets his eyes flood black, a mirror to the thing he is inside this meatsuit.

Coulson doesn't even twitch. "Clint." His voice is quiet again. "I believed you. I just hadn't decided yet what I should or shouldn't tell the director. There's really no need for dramatics."

Clint slumps lower in his chair, blinking his eyes clear of the inky darkness, feeling like an asshole. "Sorry, sir," he mumbles.

Coulson's lips twitch. "No harm done. That's a neat trick, by the way."

Glaring has no effect on Coulson, it never has. Clint tries it anyway.

"What do you think I should do here?" Coulson asks him point-blank. When Clint only shrugs in reply, he sighs a little. "Why did you tell me?"

"You asked." Clint stares hard at the desk so he doesn't have to look at the man. "Never lied to you before, wasn't gonna start now."

Coulson doesn't point out that lying by omission is still lying; Clint's always been allowed some secrets. For a long time, it was one of the reasons he stuck around. He does ask again, "What should I do here, Agent Barton?"

"Damn it." Clint rubs at his face again, trying to stall the answer he already knows he has to give by a few seconds. "Fury has to know. If he's going up against Hell – and he will, because he's a moron – he needs to be ready. But he's not gonna want—"

"Let's try this," Coulson cuts in, standing and making his way around his desk so that he's standing right in front of Clint. He leans back against it a little, folding his arms. "You promise to stay, to keep being the person – the _hero_ , and don't look at me like that – you've been all along, and I promise you'll always have a home here. No matter what Fury says."

It sounds way too fucking good to be true, but Coulson hasn't broken a promise he's made to Clint yet. And Clint trusts him, maybe more than is good for him. He nods. "You got yourself a deal," he says, trying to sound confident. When he can't quite manage that, he calls on attitude instead and smirks at the agent. "Should we seal the deal like the crossroads demons do it?"

Coulson doesn't look impressed. He witnessed the steamy make-out session between the demon who infiltrated and the last human she bargained with. "Let's save that for later, Barton. I think I can take you at your word for now."

"Damn." Clint offers up a grin. "There go my Saturday night plans."

Coulson trying not to smile is one of Clint's favorite Coulson looks. "Better luck next time." His eyes glint with humor. It feels surreal after the conversation they've had. "You should get going. I'll try to give you a head start, so you and Agent Romanov can figure out how you want to tell the team." He pauses. "I assume you want to tell them yourselves, or I can—"

"They deserve to hear it from us." Not a conversation Clint's looking forward to, although he suspects Thor already knows. Loki had, at any rate, and the demigod goes quiet around Clint sometimes, watching him.

He stands, nodding to Coulson. "Thank you, sir," he says, turning to go.

A warm hand snags his wrist. "Thank you," Coulson says, strangely intense. "For trusting me. This doesn't change anything, you know."

Coulson knowing changes everything, but Clint doesn't tell him that. It may even be for the better, anyway, what does he know? All he says is, "I'm glad," and then Coulson releases him and he finally takes his leave, intent on finding Natasha before he breaks.

~

He finds her in a rarely used corridor well below the main hangar deck. He doesn't have to say a single fucking word before she's pulling him into her arms, because Natasha's awesome like that, and she always knows exactly what he needs, usually before he has a goddamn clue. He drops his face to her shoulder and she guides them both to their knees on the floor, whispering reassurances in Russian he only half understands.

Later, when he's finally stopped shaking and they're sitting beside each other against the wall, she looks over at him and nudges him with her shoulder. "It could have been worse."

"Still could be."

"You don't believe that." It's not fair, how sure of herself she sounds _all the time_. "He cares about you."

"He shouldn't. And the team—"

"One disaster at a time, Clint." She leans over, resting against the side of his arm. "We're gonna be okay."

"Is that what you know?" he mutters. It sounds like an echo.

"Yes. It is."

He breathes out, slowly. "Well then. Guess we should get going."

He remembers Coulson's promise, that he'll always have a home here. And later, when the tower comes into view in the windshield of their jet, he holds onto that as tightly as he can.

He prays to the gods of his people like he hasn't done since he was human.

He wonders if the way he cares so much means he's regained more of his humanity than he realized, and he doesn't know what to feel at all.


End file.
